Ever since Black Ops 6 was revealed during the Xbox Games Showcase event, gamers have been plagued with promotions whenever they launch the Call of Duty HQ. We get it, Activision wants to sell its biggest upcoming offering to existing gamers, but can’t the ads be toned down a bit?
When you fire up Call of Duty HQ to play Modern Warfare 3 or Warzone, you’re immediately presented with ads for Black Ops 6, and there are quite a few of these. In the image above, you can see how much space Black Ops 6 advertising covers. This is a free marketing technique for the company, but it doesn’t have to be right in your face.
I’m not the only one who thinks this has gone too far; as can be seen in the recent thread above, many players share the sentiment. The new menu design in Call of Duty has already been heavily criticized since Modern Warfare 2 and these promotions make it even more annoying; I have to scroll and click so many times just to get to the game mode I want to play.
Let’s say you scroll up to see the message from the day tab; you will immediately be greeted with ads from Black Ops 6. When you go down to the MW3 or Warzone listings, you will first need to go past the pre-purchase tab of Black Ops 6. Want to buy a cool bundle from the store? Guess what, why don’t you order the next Call of Duty first? Some may argue that these are small things, but in my opinion, the ads popping up on my face right when I launch the game ruins the experience.
In defense of the announcements in CoD HQ
Another reddit user, CptMeat, claims that it makes sense that Black Ops 6 is being promoted in the CoD HQ and not in MW3 or Warzone. Others argue that if this technique didn’t work, they wouldn’t implement it, which is probably because they’ve been going for years. This is fair because the CoD community is vast and those who criticize the game on social media platforms for its flaws are in the minority. Therefore, the devs will ultimately do what works best for them.
The success of Call of Duty can be attributed to several factors including the casual player-oriented game experience, grindable weapons and cams, classic multiplayer formula, action-packed campaign, and much more. However, marketing also plays an important role in the sales numbers of the games. Now, paid promotions through different channels are important, but free ads shown to existing players in the game are even more profitable.
Solutions are moving forward
Although this is a promotional method that I dislike, I admire how they implemented the Black Ops 6 Easter Eggs in Warzone. It added value to the game because it’s fun content that offers little challenges for us, the players, to enjoy. (I was able to unlock free goodies like the Sally weapon project and a cool finishing move.) Hopefully, we’ll see more of these challenges and events leading up to the release of BO6 and its integration with Warzone later this year.
Let’s just assume that CoD HQ is actually a good place to promote the new game to the active player community. Then can we at least have a clean, easy to navigate menu? The horizontal scrolling behavior is ideal for smartphones and games like Warzone Mobile, but it’s a headache to scroll through the large tabs on PC or console with your controller or mouse. If the BO6 ads can’t be muted, we can at least go back to the simpler vertical list-style menu in the future.
If you remember playing any old Call of Duty games, or even Modern Warfare 2019, you would know how easy it was to set up your loadout and select game modes because of the vertical menu. Why can’t we just have a simple menu design and get rid of the big fancy tabs and long animations that cause the game to freeze even months after its launch? Another thing the developers can do is provide the option of where you want to go – MW3, Warzone or MW2 – right when you hit launch. This is detrimental to their CoD HQ design, but the player experience would be much better.
We publish more such Call of Duty content here on Pro Game Guides. You can check out our articles on Warzone has a gun bloat issue and ‘Carry Forward’ doesn’t help and the Call of Duty lag situation is only getting worse and needs to be fixed.
